Archive for the 'Meg Whitman' Tag Under 'Total Buzz' Category

It doesn't sound like a full-time gig, but at least it should get Meg Whitman off the couch.

The Republican and former eBay CEO, who lost the California governor's race last year by a whopping 13 points, has been named to Hewlett-Packard's board of directors as part of a broad shakeup. Four directors have been replaced and a new seat has been created.

Whitman will be one of 13 directors.

While H-P isn't facing anything like the $25 billion budget shortfall Whitman would be wrestling with if she'd beaten Jerry Brown, the Palo Alto computer giant has plenty of troubles of its own.

Former Chief Executive Mark Hurd left under a cloud of personal-conduct issues six months ago. H-P said it would hire outside lawyers to conduct an investigation of the events surrounding Hurd's exit, the latest development in a shareholder lawsuit stemming from the move, according to this Wall Street Journal story.

Meg Whitman has agreed to pay $5,500 to her fired former maid, an illegal immigrant whose emergence into the gubernatorial campaign landscape likely contributed to former eBay CEO Whitman's 12-percentage point loss to Democrat Jerry Brown.

Housekeeper Nicky Diaz Santillan and her high-profile attorney, Gloria Allred, were seeking $8,000 to $10,000 in wages, mileage and penalties unpaid in her nine years of working for Whitman. The settlement came with a statement from Whitman that she did not feel she owed Santillan money.

Whitman campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds is quoted by the Sacramento Bee as saying, "It's important for people to understand that this was a political charade, and at the end of the day Meg Whitman and (husband) Dr. Harsh are just glad to move on and put this spectacle to rest." Santillan thrust herself into the campaign spotlight on Sept. 29, when she and Allred held a press conference to explain that the illegal immigrant had worked for Whitman for nine years, had been fired just before Whitman entered the governor's race, and alleged that Whitman owed her money.

Whitman responded that she didn't know Santillan was an illegal immigrant until just before firing her, despite receiving a letter from the Social Security Administration alerting her and her husband that Santillan's Social Security number was assigned to someone with a different name.

This is a tough call, because most of the major candidates for California's top races didn't give the social-media thing much of an effort Tuesday.

Let's rank them, from best to worst:

1. Meg Whitman, Republican candidate for governor. Whitman's team had posted six tweets as of this writing, and she gets credit for giving some love to her supporters, including a video of a news guy interviewing two volunteers.

2. Kamala Harris, Democratic candidate for attorney general. Not only does Harris have a strong-looking picture (as opposed to Jerry Brown's cut-in-half one), she added some urgency with a tweet telling everyone there was only five hours left until the polls close, at 8 p.m.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman spent Monday stopping into campaign headquarters in Southern California, including one in Costa Mesa. Click on the photo for a slide show of her appearance.

You can have the lifelong Democratic politician backed by labor unions who vows to use his political knowledge, experience and relationships to make necessary changes.

Or you can have Republican outsider, a successful CEO and billionaire who didn't begin voting regularly until she was 46, who's spent more than $140 million of her own money to run, and who promises to take on the unions as part of sweeping reform in Sacramento.

The choice should be clear, but 55 percent of likely voters say they're dissatisfied with both candidates, according to a poll done earlier this month by the Public Policy Institute of California. Continue reading this story>>

Whitman made the bet today in advance of the first game between the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers tonight, according to the Associated Press.

On the campaign trail, Whitman says how Perry told her how he loves to come hunting in California - hunting for companies seeking a more favorable business climate. She holds Texas up as the kind of business climate she'd like to create in California if she wins Tuesday.

However, if the polling trend showing Democrat Jerry Brown widening his lead is accurate, the only things her $140 million-plus in campaign spending is going to help her win in the near future is a pair of cowboy boots. That's what Perry will send her if the Giants prevails. She'll send Perry a surfboard if the Rangers win. I recommend a longboard, since the waves are pretty small in the Gulf.

The latest round of public polling shows Democrats Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer, continuing the trend of broadening their leads.

RealClearPolitics.com's aggregation of major public polls now has Brown leading Meg Whitman in the governor's race by an average of 8.6 percentage points. The polls used include CNN/Time (Brown by 7 points), SurveyUSA (Brown by 8 points) and Fox/Rasmussen (Brown by 9 points).

RealClearPolitics shows incumbent Sen. Boxer leading Republican challenger Carly Fiorina by an average of 6.4 percentage points. CNN/Time has Boxer by 5 points, SurveyUSA has Boxer by 5 points, and Fox/Rasmussen has Boxer by 4 points.

If you don't already see them below, click on the prompt for headlines and links for recent stories in the governor's race.

Democrat Jerry Brown Tuesday offered to stop airing negative campaign ads if Republican Meg Whitman would do the same. Whitman, who trails in most polls for the governor's race, declined.

The suggestion that both stop negative campaigning in the attack-filled race came from Matt Lauer, co-anchor of NBC's “The Today Show,” at the The Women's Conference 2010 in Long Beach, which both candidates attended.

Brown's campaign has posted video of the exchange - in which Brown is cheered and Whitman draws a negative reaction from the crowd as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger looks on, increasingly amused at the exchange.

“If she takes her negative ads – as reasonably defined – I'll take mine off, no question," Brown said. "If we do it together, no problem. I pledge that right now."

In explaining Whitman's decision to continue attacking, her campaign pointed out the labor unions are helping Brown attack Whitman. Those unions would apparently not be bound by any deal Brown made.

Republican Meg Whitman and Democrat Jerry Brown both boast of big plans for the state's biggest issues, but their approaches differ broadly.

The candidates' background are very different – a billionaire businesswoman, largely financially independent from special interests, who only began voting in recent years; and a lifetime politician heavily backed by public labor unions.

They vary widely on policy as well. I've done a side-by-side comparison of the two on jobs, the budget, taxes, the environment, immigration and pension reform. Read it here.